


Chained

by ShadowWing13



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Aogiri no Ki | Aogiri Tree (Tokyo Ghoul), Cannibalism, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Canon-Typical Violence, Centipede Kaneki Ken, Gen, Gore, I promise, Insanity, It Gets Better, Kakuja, Kaneki Ken | Sasaki Haise Needs a Hug, Mukade - Freeform, Mukade Makes A Grand Entrance, My First Fanfic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Aogiri Tree Arc (Tokyo Ghoul), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, That's Kinda Expected Tho, Why is this so dark, minor OCs - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:30:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22922659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowWing13/pseuds/ShadowWing13
Summary: /tʃeɪn/•       Confined within a chain-Kaneki strays down a dark path whilst seeking revenge against Aogiri Tree. But kakujas and the CCG throw an unforeseen and bloody twist in the mix.(Partly inspired by TeaSparkels’ fic, Centipede Whisperer)
Relationships: Arima Kishou & Kaneki Ken | Sasaki Haise, Kaneki Ken | Sasaki Haise/Nagachika Hideyoshi
Comments: 44
Kudos: 100





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Centipede whisperer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4074115) by [TeaSparkles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaSparkles/pseuds/TeaSparkles). 

> This fanfic was inspired by the fantastic story 'Centipede Whisperer' by Teasparkels. If you're a fan of this concept, I highly recommend giving it a read.  
If you're interested in having a look at some other fanfic ideas I have, I made a separate work for them which you can find [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23170306).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING:  
There are heavy descriptions of violence and gore throughout this chapter, so if you are uncomfortable with that, or if graphic gore makes you queasy, please don't read this at all. 
> 
> This level of violence will be common, but not constant, in this fic.

Something that had always succeeded in both repulsing and fascinating Kaneki was how sensitive his kagune were. He could feel each individual eddy of the cool night air caressing the two rinkaku waving behind him in a gentle breeze, and pinpoint the exact places where the blood from the ghoul impaled on the others dripped down it’s smooth, scaled length, scarlet red contrasting starkly against reflective near-black. 

Kaneki could touch the meat ripping and bones snapping as he tore them in half as if he held them between his fingertips. The jarring impact as he slammed a second ghoul into the alley wall made him shudder, aftershocks rocking up his kagune. The way the bones in the third ghoul’s sternum cracked around him as he pierced through its chest cavity, blood spurting and splattering on the dull brick walls around him. Kaneki’s stomach twisted as the ghoul convulsed, his breath picking up in excitement as he realised he could feel the tattered remains of slimy organs sliding against his smooth scales. 

_It’s wonderful, isn’t it?_

With eyes alight with amazement and the thrill of the kill, Kaneki turned to the last ghoul. It was cowering in a corner, edging as far away from the growing pools of crimson as physically possible, but letting the hem of its drab red cloak become stained. 

_This feeling of power, this delectable scent of fear?_

When the ghoul heard Kaneki take a step in its direction, it flinched violently, its hood falling to reveal a youthful face framed by dark brown locks, scrunched in fear and eyes wide with terror. 

Kaneki drew his rinkaku out of the bloody corpses around him and retracted them into their home in his lower back. The Aogiri ghoul watched in horror as he took bloodstained steps towards it, its mouth working on nothing, attempting to choke out words though the strangling hold of fear that gripped it. He watched as its eyes grew wider with every step closer.

“S-,” the ghoul shuddered, screwed its eyes shut and shouted, “Stop!” Kaneki paused. “Please, don’t kill me!”

Kaneki tilted his head, silver eyes glinting in the faint light. “And why shouldn’t I?” He drawled out in a cold monotone. He took a step closer, liquid squelching around his feet.  
The ghoul gasped as it was lifted from the ground by his hand around its neck. It clawed at his arm, desperate for an escape. “Please!” It cried, “I'm innocent!” 

Kaneki slammed it against the wall. 

“No one in Aogiri is innocent,” He hissed. 

Its feet scrambled for purchase against the brick wall as it whimpered. “I am! I only joined because Picker made me!” 

“Picker? Who are they?” He loosened his grip slightly. 

It gasped, tears pricking at the corners of its dark eyes. “He’s an executive, not one of the higher ups like Ayato-sama, but still important!”

“Name?”

“Tanyo! Tanyo Hanori!”

“Where is he now?”

“Not far from here, in the Eighteenth Ward.”

“Miza’s territory.”

The ghoul glanced off to the side, a fearful grimace on its face as it wheezed, “He’s a subordinate.”

Kaneki opened his hand and allowed the Aogiri grunt to fall to the ground where it coughed and spluttered, gasping for air to sate its oxygen deprived lungs. He watched it struggle on the dirty concrete for a few seconds before kneeling beside it. 

“You can go-” The ghoul began wheezing out its gratitude before it glanced up and froze. His eye narrowed, turning stone cold, “-to hell.”

The ghoul coughed, blood seeping out of its mouth and dribbling down its chin. Its body lurched as Kaneki withdrew his arm from its abdomen, slick viscera coating his arm as it slid out and through the middle of the rapidly expanding dark stain in the ghoul’s shirt. 

“Huh?” Its arms reached forward to cradle its stomach, its gaze still locked firmly on Kaneki in disbelief. 

The ghoul slumped over, dead. 

Kaneki dropped his arms and rocked back on his heels, letting out a sigh into the cool night air. He rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. 

How many was it this time? Four? Yeah, that’s right. He’d just killed four more members of Aogiri. Four more ghouls were dead. Four more people. Four more lives had been extinguished by his hand. Had the corpse in front of him been someone, perhaps? Did the blood that was gradually cooling beneath his feet have family waiting for a member that would never return?

The blood. 

Right. 

Kaneki was suddenly very aware of the wetness of the hand that was currently buried in his hair. He moved it in front of him, observing as the once-white strands clung to his skin and then peeled away, now a dark shade of maroon. The blood on his hand had trailed down to his elbow like a gory imitation of a glove, streaks of red pooling and dripping to the ground. 

Another drop fell, a glistening ruby red gem of life giving liquid reflecting the distant light of the street. It landed with a plop among a thousand others, fading into obscurity among the masses. 

It was all around him, he realised. It was everywhere. Spread over the ground, painting the walls, painting him. Then he noticed the smell. The oppressive scent of iron hanging in the air, wafting through the alley and weighing him down. 

That scent… it was tantalisingly close.. He could feel the off-taste of ghoul blood on his tongue, musky and brimming with power. His stomach rumbled. How long had it been since he’d last eaten? He swirled the bloody digits in his mouth, drawing out every last trace of blood before moving onto his hand, quickly getting lost in a heady haze of hunger. Before he knew it, his arm was spotless and he was casting his gaze to the corpse of the Aogiri ghoul lying in front of him. The hole in its gut was facing him, full of glistening meat and still oozing bitter blood. His mouth filled with saliva at the sight, his hand reaching forward, ready to sink into flesh and rip a piece off. If just licking the blood left on his arm was so nice, what would consuming a whole body be like? He could already feel the rush and taste the-

His phone was vibrating.

Kaneki stared at his outstretched hand, only noticing the static and red haze when it faded from his ears and vision. Had his nails always stood out in such stark contrast with his skin?

He schooled his maniac expression back into his usual neutral mask and stood, reaching a hand into his pocket and drawing out his phone. He stared at the unknown number for a few scant seconds before answering.

“Moshi-moshi?”

Recently, to pay off the rent he owed his landlord after moving back into his old apartment, Kaneki had been taking increasingly risky jobs. The majority of which were short bouts of mercenary work as a bodyguard for high-profile ghouls in various wards, along with the occasional assassination, all of which paid well. The phone he now held was a burner phone, the one he used to answer all work-related calls, and was completely untraceable.

“_Hello?_” The voice was that of a young man, quaking slightly, most likely from nervousness. “_Is this Gun?_”

Kaneki subconsciously stood straighter at being addressed by his other alias. “Yes, it is.”

“_I have a… um… job for you, if you want to take it._”

“What is it?”

“_Have you heard of Aogiri? I want you to… uh… take out one of their executives. We only know his alias, Picker, and that he’s supposedly pretty tough, ranked at an A+_”

“I’ll text you the number of a bank deposit, I want 500,000 within the next hour and 250,000 after it’s done.”

“_S-sure._”

Kaneki disconnected the call and sighed. What was that man, no, a boy - he barely sounded twenty - doing mixed up in Aogiri business? Whatever it was, it didn’t really matter. One less Aogiri ghoul was a step closer to his ultimate goal of completely destroying Aogiri and eliminating all of its members. And it just so happened to be that he knew where he could find Picker. He winced, glancing at the reason why he had this knowledge, spread out around him in the alley. 

Kaneki sighed, adjusted his mask, and leaped out of the ally and onto the rooftops. He paused for barely a second, before vanishing into the night.

He had a job to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's a wrap.
> 
> Pretty short for a first chapter, but I'm happy with it. Comments and feedback is welcome, please let me know what you thought!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The caller reveals themselves, and Kaneki hunts down Picker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lil heads up to avoid confusion:  
Gantai is the Japanese word for Eyepatch (眼帯). If you watch the sub for the anime, you'll notice that's what they call Kaneki, rather than the katakana pronunciation, Aipatchi (アイパッチ). The first character of Gantai sounds exactly the same as the katakana pronunciation for gun (ガン), so that's where that came from.

Seidou shuffled anxiously, pulling at his cuffs and adjusting his tie despite it already being perfect. 

He stood outside the doors of Special Investigator Marude’s office, gripping a paper form between his hands, waiting to enter and gain the approval needed to carry out his investigation. Seidou had information that no one else had, and a way to possibly capture a ghoul that had been eluding the CCG for over a year. If he managed to pull this off, he might even be promoted to a Rank One investigator, bringing him one step closer to being on the same level as Amon and Mado. 

Seidou took a deep breath and released it, forcing himself to relax. He wouldn’t get approval of any sort if he looked frazzled and stuttered in front of the senior investigator.

“Come In.” Marude’s voice came through the door, slightly muffled due to the distance.

Seidou squared his shoulders and entered the office. The room was large, with bookcases and filing cabinets pushed against one wall, and a small kitchenette on the other. Directly opposite the doors where Seidou entered was a dark oak desk situated in front of a wall-length window that overlooked the cityscape of the 1st Ward. The desk was cluttered with piles of paper and folders stacked messily on top of one another. In the middle was a computer screen, skewed to the side enough to reveal the person Seidou came to see.

Marude was slouched in his seat, legs crossed and his head resting on a fist. His ever-present scowl was firmly placed upon his face, and his eyes were fixed on Seidou.

“G-good morning, sir.”

Seidou gulped nervously and berated himself internally. Only the first word and he’d already made a mistake. Marude would never take him seriously at this rate.

“You’re Takizawa, correct?”

Seidou gripped the paper tighter. “Yes, sir. I am.”

“Well then,” Marude shifted and laid his hands together on the desk, leaning forward to watch him from under the shade of his brow, “Care to explain why you need my permission instead of your mentor’s to conduct an investigation.?”

“Um...,” _Don’t stutter!_ “I have a lead on a ghoul…”

“And why should I care? The CCG gets leads every day.”

“I think I may have… uh…” Seidou began to sweat, “found a very possible lead to the location and identity of the S Rate ghoul, Gantai.” 

Marude’s eyes glinted. “Gantai, you say. And what proof do you have?”

Seidou flinched, he didn’t have any. Not yet, at least. “I-”

“Gantai is a very highly ranked ghoul that we have been chasing for over a year without any progress,” Marude cut him off, “what makes you think that _you_, a mere rank 2 investigator, can track him down?”

Seidou flinched. “I’ve managed to connect Gantai to the mercenary known as Gun.” He dared a glance up and saw Marude lean back in his chair. 

“Continue,” Marude grunted.

Seidou blinked and stood a little straighter. “Well, the CCG already had suspicions of Gun being a ghoul but couldn’t do anything due to not having any concrete evidence or being involved in policing affairs. We also didn’t know the identity of Gun, due to them being so discreet with their jobs.” Seidou dropped his shoulders a bit, and forged on with his theory, “So I dug around a little, and found out that Gun had also taken assassination jobs, but only took down ghouls. And the interesting thing is that all of these kills were messy, the complete opposite of how Gun usually works. The police only managed to connect it back to Gun due to the clients confessing when they were brought in.”

Seidou looked over to Marude, who was watching him with curiosity. Good, he had him interested now. Seidou let himself break a tiny smile before continuing.

“Gun was given their alias due to the speed and efficiency of their jobs, and Gantai’s due to his eyepatch mask. The connection I found was this; all the ghouls killed by Gun had some kind of connection to a ghoul restaurant, or Aogiri Tree, which is consistent with what we have seen of Gantai’s kills. That and the katakana for Gun have the same pronunciation as the first kanji of Gantai.”

Seidou took a breath to announce his final point when he noticed Marude holding up a hand. “Takizawa, this is all very far-fetched. Do you have any actual evidence, or just vague theories to waste my time with?”

“I-” Seidou deflated, shoulders sagging as all of his temporary confidence vanished. He fixed his eyes on the wood panelled floor and tried his best to quell the sudden pressure in his chest. “No.”

Marude huffed and picked up a pen. “Then leave.” He didn’t even look at Seidou as he began reading through the documents on his desk. 

Seidou slowly turned and took reluctant steps across the room, the doors looming before him. He placed his hand on the door handle and looked over his shoulder at the Special Investigator, who remained focused on the papers in front of him, his frown even more prominent than before. Seidou clenched his jaw and stepped into the hallway outside Marude’s office, the doors closing with a hollow bang behind him. 

A thick feeling clogged his throat and his stomach sunk into the floor. Seidou squeezed his eyes shut and balled his hands into fists, the forgotten paper crumpling into a useless ball. 

“Damnit, damnit, _damnit_!” 

He hit his fist with the paper against the concrete wall, and immediately regretted it as his knuckles cracked painfully against the hard surface.

Seidou gripped at his hand and felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes. Why had he thought he could get Marude’s approval for an investigation when all he had were fleeting suspicions and a gut feeling? Of _course_ he would need definite evidence and of _course_ Marude wouldn’t believe him, no matter what he said. Not even Amon had any information about Gantai, and he’d encountered him _twice_.

Seidou sniffed and wiped at his eyes furiously. He couldn't give up! Not when he could prove himself right. Why did he even go to Marude in the first place? What happened had been a guarantee. He had everything he needed to conduct the investigation on his own, so why ask for permission he knew he wouldn’t get? 

Seidou shook out his sore hand, picked up the useless paper from where it had fallen and trudged down the hallway towards the lifts. As he walked, he slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a smaller strip of paper, barely the size of his finger, looking like it had been torn off the edge of something larger. On it was scrawled a phone number, something that Seidou had gone to great lengths to obtain. 

Taking a quick detour through the office where Hirako Squad was tracking the movements of Aogiri Tree, Seidou made his way down to his workspace in the lower ranked investigators’ offices. Double checking to make sure no one was around, he placed the two files he grabbed from the Aogiri Tree office on his desk before taking out his phone and opening the call app, quickly typing in the number on the paper slip.

Seidou stared at the screen, his thumb hovering over the call button. He glanced to the side, at the random page he pulled from the pile of Aogiri ghouls’ files. A hazy picture of a Rate A+ ghoul with a white mask glared back at him, kakugan blazing and a spiked bikaku frozen behind it. Reading through the description beneath, he found that it was known for picking holes into its victims, barely eating anything before leaving the body to rot. 

Seidou cast his eyes to the file next to Picker’s, which belonged to a ghoul even more dangerous. No identifiable picture apart from a blur of white and black, first encountered at the scene of Kureo Mado’s death, and last glimpsed at the raid of the 11th Ward Aogiri base a month ago. Below the description was a list of locations that had shown traces of his presence, mostly in the form of eviscerated bodies of ghouls, the majority of which were confirmed members of Aogiri. 

If Seidou’s theory was right, and Gun really was the eye-patched ghoul, everything should go well. 

He hit call, and waited.

\-- -- -- -- -- 

The night was breaching the early hours of the morning when Kaneki reached the Eighteenth Ward, panting with exertion from his long sprint across the Tokyo skyline from the Twenty-Third Ward.

Kaneki narrowed his eyes, scanning the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. Picker. He’d heard a few rumours about the rate A+ ghoul. He got his name from how he took small bites out of a victim, while they were still alive, and then leaves the half-eaten body to rot. He was the worst kind of ghoul, one that relished in the pain of humans, and had little to no regard towards life. The least he could do was finish his meal, but instead he left almost entire bodies to waste. 

Kaneki’s gut rolled with disgust. He would be more than happy to remove the piece of filth from the world. But first, he had to find him.

Kaneki stood on the edge of the building, the lights of the still-busy streets illuminating him from below. A cool wind blew from the south, carrying a hint of salt from the ocean, casting the pale strands of his hair across his face and obscuring his eyes.

Kaneki turned his nose into the wind and strained his senses to catch anything that could help him in his search. After a few minutes of waiting, a chance presented itself: a faint scream of pain and a whiff of freshly spilt blood. 

Crouching down and bracing his hands against the building’s edge, Kaneki leaped across the gap between high-rises and ran north, towards the scent of blood and deeper into the ghoul territory of the Eighteenth Ward. 

With quick silent steps, he jumped across roofs, alleys and dimly lit streets. The smell of blood grew stronger, now accompanied by the sound of wet crunching, which was obviously a ghoul having a meal. With luck, it would be the ghoul that he was hunting. Sliding to a stop above the alley with the ghoul and human victim, Kaneki took a moment to regain his breath before hopping down into the darkness.

The ghoul before him was crouched over the body of a teenage girl, slowly gnawing a finger down to the bone, blood dribbling from his lips. The ghoul looked to be in his mid-forties and was wearing casual clothes with a dark jacket hanging loosely off his shoulders. On his head and pushed up to one side was a mask. It was white with an elongated nose and had dark holes for the eyes and breathing along the snout. A glance at the corpse was all Kaneki needed to confirm that this was Picker. The girl’s body was filled with holes, each around the size of a fist and oozing dark blood.

Picker glanced up at Kaneki’s sudden entrance, dark kakugan gazing at him with boredom. “You here for a snack?” 

Kaneki stood up straight and glared at him with a steely eye. “No, business. You’re Picker, lower executive of Aogiri, currently under the command of Miza Three Blades.”

Picker licked the blood off his fingers. “What’s it to you? If you’re here to sign up, you’re in the wrong place. Go bother Miza instead.”

“No,” Kaneki’s eyes froze over as he prepared himself for the coming fight, “I’m here for you, Tanyo-san.”

That caught his attention. Picker staggered to his feet, tilting his head back to gaze at Kaneki down his nose. “Lookin’ for a fight, huh?” 

He dropped his chin, and an expectant smirk spread across his bloody lips. There was a crackle of energy before a spiked orange bikaku snapped out from behind him, curling over itself as Picker stepped closer over the cooling corpse of his victim. 

Kaneki allowed his eye to bleed black, his iris flooding with burning red. He held up a hand, thumb pressing down sharply on the joint of his index finger.

_Crack!_

“Indeed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was a long chapter. 
> 
> Takizawa is now here, soloing an investigation on Gantai, and some shit is going to go down on Kaneki's side.
> 
> I'm thinking about starting the next chapter after the beatdown between Kaneki and Picker. I'm not that confident in my writing, so I don't want to push my luck with a fight scene just yet. If you guys would like to see the full fight next chapter, leave a comment with your thoughts, and I'll do it.
> 
> Constructive criticism is super useful to me! If you spotted a mistake of any kind, or it didn't flow or make sense, let me know and I'll go back and fix it!  
I love hearing you opinions, so please comment! It really lights up my day!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaneki's fight with Picker, and the aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I have no excuse.  
It's been way too long and I'm sorry for that. 
> 
> Anyway, I wanted to thank everyone for all the super nice comments, they really helped motivate me to finish this chapter. 
> 
> Again, I'm really sorry for the delay in updates. I have no intention of abandoning this fic, so I'll continue writing it, no matter how long it takes for me to put up the next chapter. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> :D

Kaneki knew from the moment he started down the path of a kakuja that things would be different. How could they not? 

In its essence, a kakuja was a ghoul that had forced its kagune to mutate into something new through the means of overloading their RC cells. Doing that in itself was going to cause changes as RC cells were present everywhere in a ghoul’s body. The senses would sharpen, the eyes and ears becoming capable of picking out details that were previously impossible to perceive, scents becoming so clear that _emotions_ became a physical thing. The RC cells in muscles tightening, taking physical abilities beyond that of an ordinary ghoul. And the kagune, originally being designed to kill weak humans, would become stronger and even more dangerous in order to hunt new prey.

But why wouldn’t eating copious amounts of humans have the same effect as eating a ghoul? It's because the RC cells generated in the bodies of humans are being constantly destroyed and created, the same as any other cell, always fresh and in small amounts. This freshness is why humans taste so good to ghouls. The RC cells in ghouls, however, do not get destroyed or created, they only ferment over time, becoming more and more potent, just like wine. That’s the reason why ghoul flesh is so bitter and repulsive to most, and why it doesn’t take much for the effects of RC mutations to begin. 

That is why, after only two months of preying upon ghouls, Kaneki could spot the changes. It was the way things came into focus the moment Picker charged him, from the air whistling between the spikes of Piker’s bikaku to the chill that radiated from the cool concrete beneath his feet. 

Kaneki sidestepped the ghoul, letting him overextend his lunge and smash into the brick wall. He tilted his head. “You’re fast, for a bikaku.”

Picker yanked his kagune out of the wall and grinned. “And you’re damn cocky.” He lunged again and swung a right hook. Kaneki ducked under Picker’s fist and jabbed an elbow under his ribs. Picker cried out in pain and jumped backwards, cradling his side. There was a high chance that his kidney was raptured, a would-be fatal blow to a human. 

“You fucker,” Picker said, “That hurt.”

Kaneki didn’t wait for him to recover. He dashed forwards. He feinted to the right and Picker fell for it, moving to block a non-existent punch. The ghoul was left completely open to the powerful kick that slipped under his guard and hammered him in the stomach. There was a nasty crack as his ribs shattered and he was flung into the alley wall. 

Picker slumped over groaning, and spat a mouthful of blood onto the pavement. The bitter scent of ghoul blood filled the air. Picker straightened up and bared bloody teeth at Kaneki. “You’re stronger than I thought. You’re more than a brat, aren’t ya?”

Kaneki shifted into stance as he eyed Picker. The scent of blood tingled at the edges of his senses, and something within him twisted. His mind felt foggy. “No. I’m not an ordinary ghoul.”

His back twinged as he released two of his kagune, and Picker’s eyes widened. Kaneki tensed the limb in the same way he would an arm, and the surface of the rinkaku hardened into smooth plating. He bent his legs and lowered himself into a crouch. 

Picker mirrored his actions, spreading his feet and raising his fists, his bikaku lashing behind him. He spat out a globule of thick blood, leaving a dark trail down his chin. It glistened in the low light. 

Kaneki lunged. His rinkaku speared ahead of him in a blur and Picker flinched to the side. It impaled the wall next to his head. Kaneki slammed the point of his second kagune forward, and this time Picker was too slow to dodge. 

There was a sickening crack as the tendril pierced the Ghoul’s shoulder. Picker’s hands flew up and grabbed it, trying to pull it out. Half a second later, Kaneki was on him, shoving him further into the wall. Cracks spread from the impact. 

“You...you bitch,” Picker groaned. 

Kaneki didn’t hear him, the static in his ears was too loud. His hunger started to rise again, fueled by the use of his kagune and the scent of blood dripping off it. Something cracked near his kakuhou. 

He thrust his hand into Picker’s chest cavity and grasped his heart, ripping it out. The ghoul’s shout of surprise and pain was cut off with a gurgle, and red poured out of his mouth, falling with a spatter to the ground. The organ in his hand was steaming in the cool air, and its heat was almost burning against his skin. 

He pulled his kagune out of the ghoul’s corpse and it slumped to the floor, landing in a puddle of blood. The sound was muffled to his ears. Everything was. The world had faded into the background, white noise and blurry shapes in the dark. Only things in his immediate vicinity were in focus. From the occasional brush of cool air to the sticky blood coating him. 

Picker’s corpse lay in front of him, and it was _oh so tempting_. He hadn’t eaten in weeks, and it was getting to him. Each time he used his kagune his stomach ached, and he’d used it twice today. 

He knows he shouldn’t, he really does. If he ate anything, it should be the body of the human that was still in the alleyway, not the dead ghoul. Strangely, the thought of tasting that sweet flesh repulsed him. The human’s blood was thick in death, like syrup. But the ghoul, which had a far more bitter scent, was alluring. It had only been a minute since it died, and its blood was still warm. 

He really shouldn’t. He knows this. 

But he’s so _hungry_. 

The world fades. 

\-- -- -- -- -- 

Awareness came back in pieces.

First was sight. Dark shapes moved in front of him, sweeping over the ground and clawing at shadows. The smell of blood invaded his senses, the metallic tang cutting against his mind. It made him feel sick. 

With scent, came taste, and his mouth was flooded with copper. It was everywhere, on his tongue, dripping down his throat, coating his teeth. The bitter taste invaded everything, unpleasant and tinged with a sour edge. 

He couldn’t help but feel that something was _wrong_. 

He became aware of rough concrete beneath his knees, and a cool liquid that was stuck to his fingers. He pressed his hands to the ground, but the feelings were still muted, as if there was a layer of material between his skin and the concrete. His kagune swept across the ground behind him, and one flopped to the side, hitting a wall. 

Gradually things came into focus, static fizzing at the edges of his vision. His body felt lethargic, as if his bones had turned to lead and were weighing him down. His hearing was still muffled. 

He slowly got to his feet and braced against the wall as his vision spun. He shuddered as a wave of nausea swept over him. He leaned more heavily on the wall and curled his free arm around his middle. He gagged as bile made its way up his throat. 

Something was very, very wrong. 

This had never happened before. When he’d eaten ghouls in the past, the only negative side effect it had was ruining his sense of taste. Nothing like this. This was bad. He felt like he was going to puke, but his insides would come out instead of bile. 

He hated it. 

He staggered away from the wall and turned to face his route to the roofs, a rickety fire escape. He took a step towards it but his knees buckled. He stuck a kagune into the ground and leant on that instead. This way, he managed to get below the lowest of the metal platforms. 

He reached up and grasped the edge, and pulled himself up. He groaned as he rolled onto the platform. The feeling of nausea was fading, only to be replaced with a bone-deep ache. It spread in slow pulses through his limbs, from his hands to all four of his rinkaku. 

With the aid of his kagune, he pushed himself to his feet again and began his slow and painful ascent to the roofs. Each step felt like he was dragging weights by his ankles. His vision was still fuzzy and skewed to the side, causing him to misjudge distances several times, stumbling into railings and missing grabs at higher platforms. 

By the time he reached the roof of the building, the nausea was gone and his vision was back to normal. The ache remained, but had lessened to such a degree where he could ignore it. 

The sun was beginning to break past the line of the horizon, casting long golden rays across the nearby ocean, making the dark waves glisten with light. It lit up the buildings around him with warmth, and the shadows became a soothing blue. 

The morning sun was a gentle heat cast upon his face and body, seeping into his skin and making the tension in his muscles drain away. The stiffness of his rinkaku faded, and they returned to their usual state, the plating melting away.

Kaneki sighed and finally dispersed his kagune, leaving a faint red trail in the air before that too vanished. 

He raised his hand to a stream of light, and felt the warmth coat his fingers, mirroring the feeling of blood but softer, more of a gentle caress than a burning heat. 

His pale skin turned golden in the light, dark smudges glinting across the back of his hand and over his fingers. It was almost serene enough to make him forget the violence that had just transpired in the alley below. 

Kaneki sighed again as he lowered his hand back into shadow. The ache pulsed through his bones, slow, muddy and painful. The sounds of early Tokyo life drifted up from the streets below, filled with the background buzz of voices and vehicles. The sound of other living beings brought further clarity to his mind, reminding him of his situation. 

He was standing on the ledge of a building, in full view of anyone who happened to look up and in his direction. The sunlight would make the blood on him visible, and mark him as a ghoul, if the mask hanging around his neck and ghostly hair wasn’t enough of a beacon. 

He needed to get back to his apartment, somewhere private where he could clean himself up and get ready for the rest of the day and night beyond. 

He turned his back to the rising sun, and ran west, towards the twentieth ward and along the edges of the Seventeenth and Nineteenth wards. 

The streets seemed to blur beneath him, and before long he was perching on the roof of his apartment block. Luckily this side of the block, where he left his window unlocked as an entrance, was cast in deep shadow from the rising sun. He would be hidden as he made his return. 

Kaneki dropped carefully over the ledge and hopped from fire escape platforms across and down the building to land lightly on the one beside the window to his apartment. He opened the window with a sharp yank and slid inside, sliding it closed behind him and twisting the latch to lock it. 

He glanced around his apartment, taking in the bland furniture and minimal decorations. One of the cushions on the sofa had been shifted to the opposite side from where he’d left it. 

He tensed and sniffed the air, searching for a foreign scent. If Aogiri had found his apartment, he would need to run, hopefully before they realised he was there. 

The tail end of a scent drifted through the air, a couple of hours old. It was tinged with bitter iron, _ghoul_, and drenched in fragrant perfume, _Tsukiyama-san_. 

Kaneki relaxed, finally letting the last of the tension drain from his body. It wasn’t Aogiri, it wasn’t an enemy. It was just Tsukiyama. Knowing him, the purple-haired ghoul had most likely come to the apartment to check on Kaneki, probably to invite him out to coffee or yet another restaurant. 

Kaneki moved towards the bedroom, tugging off his bloody shirt and tossing into a hamper to be washed later as he passed by the bathroom. He didn’t bother flicking on a light as he entered, despite the tightly closed blinds over the windows and the almost complete lack of light. The digital clock on his bedside revealed the time to be just after five. 

He frowned. How long had he blacked out for? He thought back on it, struggling to remember anything from that time. Everything came up blank. Even the fight with Picker seemed blurred and fuzzy at the edges, descending into nothing after he’d killed the older ghoul. And then there was the overpowering sense of wrongness when he’d come back to himself. The unbalance, sickness and ache which had faded completely after a few minutes. 

Kaneki raised his hand and examined it carefully. It appeared perfectly normal underneath the streaks of dried blood, nothing out of place. He rubbed at the dark marks, brushing it away as it crumbled. His eyes narrowed when one patch refused to be removed. 

Deciding to wash it off instead, Kaneki headed towards the bathroom. The light was turned on with a habitual flick, and then the tap. The water took on a pinkish tinge around his hands as it carried away the last of the blood clotted around his fingernails and in the creases of his knuckles. 

The patch refused to leave. 

Kaneki scratched at it, only to jolt back when his nails slipped over a smooth, hard surface. 

“...What?” He whispered.

His hand was clean from all signs of blood, dried or otherwise, yet part of his skin remained a dark burgundy, almost black. It shined, reflecting the artificial lights with small glints that shifted when he moved his hand. It looked almost like a part of his kagune had decided to attach itself to his hand, but that was impossible. So what was it?

A small spark of pain flared in him and he winced. The patch seemed to stretch, expanding to encompass his thumb and half of his pointer and middle fingers. It leaked around to curl over his palm, sending sharp jabs of pain the whole way.   
Kaneki’s eyes widened as it changed further, minuscule ridges rising and forming what appeared to be scaled armour around his hand. It only took a few short seconds before it stopped, the ache fading with it. 

He took a shaking step backwards, eyes glued to his hand. It didn’t even look like his anymore, with half of it twisted into a form that could have been mistaken as having been torn off his rinkaku. 

The two fingers that had been completely covered with the red armour had become claws, behind them the plating rose in smooth ridges up and over his hand, extending seamlessly from the points and catching the light with a subtle metallic shine. 

A lump formed in his throat, choking off his air and making his next breath shake on the way in. This… this wasn’t right. 

He knew it was an outward sign of his slow descent into becoming a kakuja, but knowledge didn’t lessen the blow of actually seeing it. Even knowing what was happening to him, why his hand had twisted itself into something monstrous, he still felt that it shouldn’t have happened. Something was deeply wrong about it. 

Yet Kaneki had placed himself on this path, so now he had to deal with the aftermath of his irreversible decision. He had to accept all of the consequences, no matter how repulsive. He had too. He didn’t know what he’d do if he rejected it. Probably not anything good. 

There was only one lingering worry he had. 

When his hand had changed, it had ached. When it stopped, the ache faded. If each change, whatever it was, hurt him, then what the hell had happened in that alley to leave him almost puking in pain?

What… what had he _become_?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm... I smell plot.
> 
> Well, fight scenes are waayyyyyy to difficult. Does anyone have any tips or criticism for how I can write better ones?
> 
> A note for this fic, it's an AU, some elements of which you can already see, and is just going to get even more AU from here on in. If you don't like AUs or canon-divergent fics, this one isn't for you. 
> 
> Something else, if you would like me to put trigger/content warnings of any kind in the notes before each chapter, let me know in the comments and I'll make sure to include them. 
> 
> Anyway, next chapter: Tsukiyama makes an entrance, and things start going wrong! (the domino effect begins)
> 
> Please leave a comment with your thoughts, I'm interested to see what you have to say!

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic, so there may be some formatting errors or spelling/grammar mistakes that I missed while editing. If there is, please let me know so I can go back and fix it!
> 
> Comments and kudos light up my day and give me the motivation I need to continue writing this story. I love hearing your opinions and criticisms, so please comment what you thought!
> 
> Updates happen whenever I have the motivation to write something. 
> 
> I have a Tumblr where I occasionally post stuff, which you can find [here](https://shadowwing13.tumblr.com/). At the moment it's mainly Tales of Arcadia, but I'll add Tokyo Ghoul stuff when I get to it. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed/continue to enjoy this story.
> 
> \- Shadow


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